This was the view from my hotel room in Tampere. I think this was some kind of papermill or wood processing factory, judging by the logjam on the stream feeding the lake. And the smell. The smell of money they call in the town. They should get out more.
Looking a little further into the distance, you can see the rotating restaurant atop the far tower. This tower dominates the skyline of the city. One day I’ll get a camera with enough resolution to capture such things properly, but for the moment you’re going to have to do with four pixels and a bit of imagination.
The lake is fairly artificial these days, with downlighters all around its edge, giving it a beautiful subdued light effect, it must be nice in the winter when its iced over and snowy all around.
I don’t have an adequate explanation of this, a number of Helsinkis signposts appeared to protrude from the backs of turtles.
A typical Helsinki street scene. The Indian guys I was with were extremely surprised to see trams still in active service – they thought they’d been eradicated from Europe.
These were interesting pieces of advertising/art, above a department store entrance. Air blowers in their feet inflating their light bodies while they were blown around in the wind. They would have been somewhat more effective if one of the poor men didn’t have his arm trapped in a window.
This is the main square by the cathedral in Helsinki, it has a distinctly Russian/Germanic feel to it somehow and a statue of Alexanda the second in the middle.
The cathedral standing guard over the square – kinda like a poor mans Sacre Couer (or however you spell it, the big white one overlooking Paris). Oddly there didn’t seem to be any sense of orientation from outside, most Cathedrals and churches in the UK have long and short sides and a general pointing east feel to them. Such a direction would have spoilt the symmetry of the area so while there is orientation inside it is not apparent from outside.
Looking out across the harbour you can see the islands in the sound, dwarfed by the ships passing by.
The park on the other side of the harbour affords a good view across to the cathedral, or it would do if it wasn’t raining.
One of the guys from work playing on springy playground toys…he’d not had a go before.
7 comments